


Inevitable

by Gigi_Sinclair



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angel Crowley, Demon Aziraphale, F/M, Genderfluid Aziraphale, M/M, Role Reversal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-21
Updated: 2019-07-28
Packaged: 2020-07-10 03:24:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19899064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gigi_Sinclair/pseuds/Gigi_Sinclair
Summary: Based onthis gif set.Some things are just inevitable.





	1. Chapter 1

The shop smells like marijuana and kebabs, like beer and brimstone and a sickly aerosol spray--sold under the name “Citrus Burst” although the closest it has ever been to any fruit, citrus or otherwise, is when the delivery driver placed his apple core atop the crate in the loading dock--which someone believes, mistakenly, will cover up all the rest. Crowley inhales deeply. It's Aziraphale's own scent, and a few days ago, Crowley thought he would never smell it again.

“Darling!” Aziraphale pops out from behind a shelving display. He's dressed in a T-shirt reading “Hot Stuff” and cut-off jeans, plastic sandals on his feet as if he's in the Costa del Sol rather than Soho on a cloudy afternoon. The shirt is thin enough for Crowley to make out a shadow on his back, his “souvenir” he calls it of his Fall, and there's a grin on his face. “The shop is back!”

“So I see.” Erotica and pornography of every type and from every era, immortalized on vases, in paintings, in books, on postcards, audio cassettes, VHS tapes, laser discs and DVDs line the shelves and hang on the walls. “I hope Pepper had her eyes shut as she restored it.”

“She's the Antichrist, dear.”

“She's still a child.”

“I'm sure she didn't have to look,” Aziraphale says brightly. “She separated you and Shadwell without ever having seen you, and thank...someone for that.” However relieved Aziraphale feels, it's nothing compared to Crowley's own joy at not having to spend the rest of eternity with that man, in that body. “Have you come to take me to lunch?”

“If you like.”

“I always like it when it's you. Just give me a moment to get changed.” He bounds off up the stairs, leaving Crowley alone.

Alone. The way he was last time he was here, when everything was ablaze and Aziraphale was nowhere to be found. Crowley swallows, his throat suddenly dry, and forces himself to be sensible. It's over. Thanks to Pepper's fortitude, and Aziraphale's cleverness, and Agnes Nutter's literal foresight, the Apocalypse was averted, humanity was given another chance, and everything returned to normal. Better than normal, in fact. He and Aziraphale, the angel and the demon, have basically been given carte blanche to continue the friendship they've been hiding for centuries. There is nothing to worry about anymore. _So why_ , Crowley wonders, _am I still so anxious?_

He takes a magazine at random from the shelf and flips idly through “Inge and Lars Visit the Seaside.” Inge and Lars are clearly dedicated models. Crowley has been to Scandinavia often. It is in no way and at no time warm enough for nude outdoor escapades of that type.

Finally, Aziraphale reappears. “Ready,” he says, and Crowley looks up.

Today, “getting changed” has encompassed putting on a thick swath of eyeliner, mascara that makes his eyelashes long enough to set world records—they must be demonically enhanced, Crowley thinks, there's no way Aziraphale's corporation can do that on its own—and dark eye shadow. Aziraphale's makeup always makes Crowley feel just a little bit dizzy. Aziraphale in makeup and in his new outfit, a leather jacket, tight jeans, and a dog collar, makes Crowley drop “Inge and Lars” on the floor, then scramble to pick it up with hands that suddenly seem incapable of following direction.

“You want to be careful looking at that stuff, darling.” Aziraphale reaches down to get the magazine, placing it back on the shelf. “You've never succumbed to lust yet, you don't want to start now.” Crowley closes his eyes, just for a moment, then follows him out of the shop.

They go to the Black Dog, because it's a favourite of Aziraphale's.

“I fancy a hamburger,” he says, as they step into the pub. “A really big one. A cow with a bun on either side would do me. And chips with ketchup. Loads of ketchup. Swimming in ketchup.”

“I know what you like,” Crowley says.

“Ooh.” Aziraphale looks at him from under his demonically long eyelashes. “As the actress said to the bishop.”

“And even I know nobody's said that for at least forty years. Get a seat. I'll bring it over.”

Crowley orders a pint for Aziraphale, as well, and a half for himself, so he's not staring at Aziraphale eat. Well, not _just_ staring at him eat. Aziraphale clasps his hands happily when Crowley sets the food and drink down in front of him. “Thank you, darling.” Aziraphale picks up a chip, covered in glistening ketchup. “I can't tempt you?”

 _You_ always _tempt me._ “Not with that. It looks like a massacre on a plate.”

“More for me, then!” Aziraphale picks up the enormous hamburger, squeezing it together so he can get it into his mouth. As he's chewing, he takes a swig of lager, barely swallowing before he says, “I never asked you. How did you find Hell?”

“As bad as I thought it would be.” The sheer disorder of the place, more than anything else, turned Crowley's stomach. The dirt and the grime and the vermin. It made Crowley long, he found, not for the ethereal beauty of Heaven, but the quiet organization of his flat on Earth.

“They were happy to see 'me' again, I'm sure.” Sarcasm drips from Aziraphale's voice like the lettuce tumbling out the back of his hamburger.

“They don't...” Crowley hesitates. “They don't take you seriously.” That was the primary feeling Crowley got. Even the name they gave him, Aziraphale, is mocking by their standards. It could as easily belong to an angel as a demon. And when Crowley-as-Aziraphale bathed in the holy water, Dagon and her minions seemed annoyed more than frightened, like Aziraphale was an inconvenience rather than a threat to them. Not even asking Gabriel for a towel had done much, although it had given Crowley the pleasure of seeing complete shock on the other angel's face.

Aziraphale waves a dismissive hand. “Story of my life, darling.” It's true. Aziraphale has always been seen as frivolous by the majority of the human population around him. He's been a dandy, a fop, a bohemian and a hippie, a lover of absinthe and an aficionado of pot. It's his choice, of course, but Crowley can't understand why he keeps making it. In reality, he's far cleverer and far more thoughtful than Crowley, who people have been mentally classifying as “chartered accountant” since the advent of money.

“Heaven was great,” Aziraphale goes on, around a mouthful of ketchup that may or may not contain chips. “They kept using your real name, all three hundred million syllables of it. I had to keep reminding myself they were talking to me.” Crowley would have likely needed to do the same. He's been just “Crowley” for so long, to Aziraphale and the humans, that he can scarcely remember what he's actually called. “Archangel Michael was as charming as I remembered her. What's that saying? 'I'd call her a cunt, but she doesn't have the warmth or the depth.'”

Crowley laughs out of sheer surprise. “I can't argue with you,” he says.

“Good,” Aziraphale replies. “Don't.”

Aziraphale eats like a man who's watched so much porn, it's bled into all areas of his life. To avoid the spectacle, which can only be described as “inappropriately distracting”, Crowley looks around the pub. There are plenty of opportunities for small miracles here. A woman at the bar is thinking of cheating on her partner. A man at the video poker machine is struggling with gambling addiction. A couple in the corner are doubting their faith after being unable to conceive a child. Crowley doesn't do anything. He's not meant to, surely, not anymore? Not since Heaven declared it wanted nothing to do with him. But what is he meant to be doing now?

“Don't think about it,” Aziraphale says.

“What?”

“Whatever it is you're thinking about. Just...” Aziraphale takes a deep breath, then lets it go. “Chill out,” Aziraphale says, as if that's something Crowley has ever done in the thousands of years they've known one another.

Afterwards, Crowley offers to buy Aziraphale an ice cream, which is met with enthusiastic gratitude. Since the rain is holding off, they go to the park. While Aziraphale's excitable attention flits from the flowers to the ice cream to the ducks to a dog to a baby and back to the flowers again, he takes Crowley's hand. It's a physical closeness that platonic friends, especially those presenting as adult men, don't really display any more. Aziraphale doesn't seem to have noticed that, and Crowley has never mentioned it. It's terribly deceitful, but Crowley doesn't mind giving strangers the idea that he, who was once called “the personification of the colour beige” by someone under the impression he was a person, could have somehow attracted someone as unique and interesting and _fast_ as Aziraphale.

When they arrive back at the shop, Aziraphale asks, “Coming in?”

Crowley hesitates. “I shouldn't.” He wants to. He wants, in fact, to never leave Aziraphale alone ever again, to make sure nothing happens to him. That's an impossible goal verging on an unseemly obsession, both for a friend and for an angel. Crowley refuses to indulge it.

“Why not?”

“I'm tired.” It's not really a lie. They've been very busy lately, he hasn't had chance to catch up to his normal amount of sleep. “I'm going to have a nap.”

“You can nap with me.”

“You don't sleep.”

Aziraphale shrugs. “You don't eat, and you just bought me lunch, drinks and dessert.”

The picture comes readily to Crowley's mind: the two of them on Aziraphale's sagging sofa, Aziraphale's hand in his hair, his head on Aziraphale's chest. “You'd never be still long enough." Crowley aims for a teasing tone, to chase away the image. 

"I can be still!" Aziraphale protests. "Still as a monk, that's me. Although, come to think of it, the monks I've known haven't been all that still..."

"I really have to go.”

Aziraphale makes a little moue of disappointment, which does nothing for Crowley's resolve. “Well, ring me later, yeah?”

Crowley nods and heads for his Ford Fiesta, newly refurbished by Pepper, before he does something infinitely regrettable.

***

Crowley loves his flat, for all sorts of reasons. He loves its sensible floor plan and reasonable rent, mysteriously unchanged since 1986. He loves its proximity to both the Tube and an array of bus routes, and its designated parking space for the Fiesta. He loves the furnishings: practical Swedish flatpack furniture bought every few years, and assembled by Crowley while Aziraphale lies on whatever is already put together and takes credit for inventing the pictorial instruction guides. He loves his plants, lush and verdant thanks to angelic love and daily encouragement. Most of all, Crowley loves that it's his place, his own home where everything is decided by him.

Right now, he decides to sleep. He takes off his shoes at the door, making sure to place them carefully on the “Tjusig” shoe rack, and heads for his bedroom. Pointedly not looking at the painting on the wall--“Good Triumphing Over Evil”, a late Renaissance masterpiece, although thanks to years of Aziraphale's rude comments, it now just looks illicit--he lies down on the spacious “Songesand.”

Nothing happens. He shifts on his pillow. Still nothing. He imagines balloons gently floating off into the sky, although that is terrible for wild animals and the environment as a whole. He tries counting sheep, then cherubim. Still nothing. Finally, he sits up. _Darn Aziraphale_ , he thinks, then immediately chastises himself for using such robust language.

They're supposed to be friends. Well, they're supposed to be adversaries, but that went out the window centuries ago, when they came up with the Arrangement. The desire for something more than mutually beneficial professional friendship, however, appeared relatively recently.

Crowley can pinpoint the exact date. Thursday 20th May, 1941. A farewell dance at the RAF base at Farnham Woods. A squadron was heading over to France the next day, and Crowley was on hand, dressed as a chaplain, ordered to offer heavenly solace to the men who in all likelihood would not return. He was standing on the sidelines, drinking weak punch and watching the airmen dance with girls from the nearby village, when a woman came up beside him.

“Care to dance, chaplain?”

“That's a very kind offer, but I don't think...” Crowley looked over. It was him. Her. Aziraphale, with sausage curls and pearl earrings and bright red lips. She smiled and grabbed Crowley's hand, dragging him out onto the dance floor just as the band struck up “I'll Be Seeing You.”

“I need your help, darling,” Aziraphale said, reaching up to place her lips close to Crowley's ear.

“With what?”

“Act like you're just dotty about me.”

“What?”

“You know. Hold me tight. Smile a little. And make sure that dark-haired fellow by the door sees us.” That could describe any number of men. Crowley followed, hoping it wasn't obvious Aziraphale was leading as she moved them across the floor. When they were nearly at the door, Aziraphale stopped, said, “Oh, darling!” and kissed him.

Aziraphale's touch was light, her lips greasy with lipstick. Still, when Aziraphale pulled away, Crowley felt his cheeks warming and a desire--an inappropriate, impossible, unangelic desire--to do that again. 

“Bloody women!” Someone snarled behind him. Crowley looked up to see a dark-haired airmen storming out.

“Thanks, dear,” Aziraphale whispered. She reached out, swiping her thumb gently over Crowley's lips. The gesture made him wobble, suddenly off-balance even though she was only wiping off the lipstick. “I'll be seeing you.” Crowley couldn't let her go that fast. He hadn't met up with her in years, and there was a war on. Just a human war, but still. Who knew when they might next be together?

“Wait.” He grabbed Aziraphale's arm. Aziraphale looked down at Crowley's hand. A smile spread slowly across her face.

“Buy a girl a meal, soldier?”

Wartime cuisine was uninspired, to say the least. Even Crowley, hardly a culinary expert, could see that. Still, Aziraphale tucked into her powdered egg and baked beans with gusto. “It was a temptation,” she said, mid-bite. “But I changed my mind.”

“Why?”

Aziraphale sighed. “He was going to leave his wife for me. He planned to write her a letter tonight, and post it before he flies over in the morning.”

“And?”

“And I got wind he's not coming back. So where's the fun in that? Why not let her remember him as a loving, faithful husband?”

There's a sharp pain in Crowley's chest, followed by a blooming sense of warmth. Rather like he's just been shot. “That's...kind.”

“Fuck you,” Aziraphale said happily, earning a glare from a man sitting against the opposite wall, the only other person in the room. “I'm terribly evil, remember?”

“Either way, you're quite pretty.” As soon as Crowley said it, he wished he hadn't. In his mind, it had sounded like a joke. Out loud, it sounded anything but. A heavy, suffocating atmosphere descended between them, like the air after a bomb dropped. Aziraphale shifted in her seat. A moment later, Crowley felt her red slingback press up against his own uniform shoe.

“What are you wearing, darling?” Aziraphale asked, her voice low.

“What am I...?”

“Cock?” She mouthed the word with relish, her scarlet lips rolling over it obscenely. Savouring it.

“I...I...I...” Crowley always had one, now that he was living in close military quarters. It saved time if he was ever caught with his pants down, so to speak. He never touched it. Most of the time, he forgot it was even there.

He wasn't forgetting now.

“Fuck off,” Aziraphale said to the man across the room.

“Listen here, you foul-mouthed tart...”

“Fuck. Off.”

“Of course, madam. My apologies.” He shut the door behind him as he went. A bolt slid into place, somehow, and Aziraphale came around the table.

“Aziraphale.” Crowley was sweating. He never sweated.

“Darling.” Aziraphale knelt on the floor in front of him. “That's going to be murder on my stockings,” she said, conversationally, as if this was a perfectly normal position to be in. “Have to miracle myself a new pair. You know what a bugger it is to get a hold of them these days.”

“You can't do this,” Crowley said, even though he wasn't sure what, exactly, “this” was

“Of course I can.” She reached forward, pressing her hand between Crowley's legs. Crowley's cock stirred with interest, eager for this first ever scrap of attention. Crowley clenched his teeth and reined it in. _You know her_ , Crowley reminded himself. _This is what she does._ Aziraphale was always trying to get Crowley to have something to eat, to sleep a little longer if he wanted to, to be proud of his achievements. She had never tried to tempt him to lust, not once in all the time they'd known one another. But why should he be surprised she got there eventually?

“Stop.”

Aziraphale did. “Do you want to fuck me instead, darling? I've got a lovely pussy at the moment. Brand new.” Crowley's stomach gave a painful twist. He wasn't sure how it was possible, since he hadn't eaten anything since 1927, but he was quite certain he had a sudden case of food poisoning. Or perhaps a fever, because he felt like he was burning from the inside out. “Or I could get myself a cock, if you'd rather that. Won't be a jif.”

Crowley stood up. He had to escape, or he would fall to temptation. He wasn't about to do any falling of any type. “I have to go.”

“Crowley, dear, don't worry. I promise, you'll love it.” That wasn't really the issue.

Crowley headed for the door. “Take care, Aziraphale.”

“Crowley!” The door swung shut. Crowley was petrified Aziraphale was going to follow him. She didn't. They didn't, in fact, see each other again until 1970. But that didn't mean Crowley forgot about Aziraphale's touch, or her kiss, or her bright red lips mouthing the word _cock_ like it was the most scrumptious meal in the world.

It didn't occur to him until much, much later that Aziraphale could have easily miracled the airman's feelings for her away on her own.

***

Since he isn't sleeping, Crowley gets up and visits the plants.

“You are doing well,” he tells them, giving a few extra squirts of water here, a little more fertilizer there. “Keep it up. I am so proud of all of you.” He leaves their music app on, programmed to their favourite Kenny G playlist, when he goes.

Belfast in 1970 was no place for an angel. There was no sign of God there, just human beings making the same mistakes they have since the beginning of time. Still, Crowley went. He doesn't care, particularly, about adult humans determined to blow one another to pieces, but there are always innocents caught up in situations like these. Children, animals, people who are just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

It was there, as he walked amazingly unscathed through a street embroiled in chaos, that a man in a denim jacket was shot right in front of his eyes.

Crowley didn't see where the bullet came from. It didn't matter. He caught the man before he hit the ground. “You'll be all right,” Crowley lied. “God loves you, my son.”

“Nice to know someone does,” the man groaned, clutching his side. Blood oozed through his jacket and onto Crowley's trousers. “Because this is not at all what I expected when my people offered me a 'little holiday in Ireland', darling.”

Crowley had a rented flat in the direst of neighbourhoods. It was really a room, small and simple, in a badly damaged building marred with spray paint. A banner reading “No Surrender” hung from the roof and flapped noisily against the window when the wind picked up. There was no food in the house, but Crowley was able to find a few desiccated teabags as Aziraphale lay on the threadbare mattress, recovering from his miracle healing.

“I have missed you, dear,” he said, as Crowley turned on the ancient gas hob and gave a quick prayer it wouldn't blow up.

“I've missed you, too,” Crowley replied. It was true. They were friends. Despite their uncomfortable last meeting, Crowley had been hoping to see him again soon.

He poured the tea into a chipped cup and passed it over. Aziraphale sat up and took a sip. “Ahh.” He sighed. “Thanks for that. It reminds me of home.”

“Surely it's not that bad.”

“Not Hell, darling. Of London. Where I have my shop.”

“Your shop?”

“I'll tell you about it later.” He placed the cup on the low table in front of him. “I think I owe you an apology.”

They couldn't talk about this. The only way Crowley was going to survive was by _not_ talking about it, for the rest of time. “Please don't.”

“I'm sorry,” Aziraphale said anyway. “I wanted to be close to you in the human way.. If you don't want that, of course we don't need to. But maybe we could be close in our own way.”

“Our own way?” Crowley asked. 

Aziraphale nodded, his wide eyes earnest. “I want to tell you how I Fell.”

“Oh.” Whatever Crowley had expected, it wasn't that.

“Come here.” Aziraphale held out a hand. Crowley crossed the tiny space and took it, sitting beside him on the mattress.

Aziraphale had been at the Garden, right at the beginning. Crowley hadn't known that. As far as he knew, Aziraphale arrived on Earth just before the Flood. The two of them met there, and Aziraphale had the dazed, shell-shocked look of a newcomer. “That was my first time on Earth as a demon,” Aziraphale explained. Before, as an angel, he'd guarded the Eastern Gate of Eden. He gave his flaming sword to Adam and Eve as they were expelled, to help them survive in the wilderness, and God punished him for it.

“That seems a little harsh.” Crowley could hardly believe it. He'd never questioned God before, never come close to it, but to be thrust into Hell for doing a kindness?

“Yes, well. It wasn't my place to make an executive decision like that. Kind of like questioning Her judgment, right? But at least I got a souvenir.” He let go of Crowley's hand to pull off his own bloodstained T-shirt. He turned, and Crowley saw it for the first time.

The dusky outline of a narrow sword was etched onto Aziraphale's spine, between where his wings would be if they were out. It was filled with fire. Not with scars, or burns, but actual flames, glowing white-hot and flickering, like Crowley was staring into a real fire. “Does it...”

“Doesn't hurt,” Aziraphale said. “You can touch it, if you like.”

Crowley hesitated, but this was Aziraphale. His friend. Overriding all of the human instincts his body had picked up over the years, Crowley reached into the fire, and felt nothing but human-like skin, as if he had placed his hand on Aziraphale's bare back.

“Fucking weird, right? Makes going to the beach a real pain in the arse. I was really pissed off when the humans decided we weren't wearing three piece suits as swimming costumes anymore.”

“I'm sorry,” Crowley said. If it was God's decision to make Aziraphale fall and to brand him like this, then it was the right one. But that didn't mean Crowley couldn't feel compassion for a fallen angel. That surely wasn't against any rules. Was it?

Aziraphale shrugged. “I'm not. Do you think we would have met in Heaven?” Probably not. “And even if we had, what fun would that have been? Sitting around singing in some celestial choir, not gossiping about anyone? No beer or chips in sight? Fucking boring.”

Crowley smiled. He knew all the languages of Heaven and Earth, more or less—Hungarian was still a bit of a bugger—but he couldn't pick out the words he wanted to say. “Aziraphale,” seemed like a good place to start, so he said that.

“Yes, darling?”

They weren't close enough. They were close, certainly, but they could be closer. Crowley wanted to be closer. He leaned forward a little, not sure where this was going. Aziraphale's body didn't move, but his eyes flicked up and down, roaming Crowley's face as if they didn't know where to land. Crowley wasn't sure where to look, either. Aziraphale's eyes were beautiful, but his mouth was remarkably alluring. No lipstick this time, Crowley thought. He wondered how that might feel. How it might compare to the last time they'd kissed.

He didn't get the chance to find out. With an ear-splitting crash, the window shattered and a blazing petrol-soaked rag in a bottle put an end to the moment, and a start to five long years of paperwork to get his corporation back.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for all the support! It's very much appreciated.

When they found each other after Belfast, in London the mid-1970s, things felt different. Aziraphale didn't mention what had happened between them—what _had_ happened between them?—and Crowley couldn't be the first to bring it up. Aziraphale had David Bowie shoes and Maurice Gibb hair and his pornography--“Erotic art, darling, you'd think angels would want to celebrate love in all its forms”--shop in Soho. Crowley had a new beige suit and unnecessary eyeglasses, which he thought made him look even more studious than usual.

Eleven years ago, Crowley was in his flat, wearing his studious eyeglasses and tending to his plants, when Aziraphale rang to say he'd just delivered the infant Antichrist to the birthing hut of a commune in Oxfordshire. 

“We can't let the world end!” Aziraphale told him, voice slurred by liquor and coloured by panic. “I can't lose it! I can't lose the humans! I can't lose you.” 

Crowley couldn't lose Aziraphale, either. So for the first—well, the second—time in his life, he broke the rules. He went behind Heaven's back, and they hatched a plan to avert the Apocalypse. 

They tried. They even moved to the commune for a while, posing as a yoga instructor and a businessman in a mid-life crisis, to try and influence the baby to evil and good respectively. Unfortunately, Pepper's mother had left the commune with the Antichrist before they arrived, Aziraphale had been too drunk at delivery to notice the difference, and this effort was expended on another very sweet but, Crowley assumes, now deeply confused little girl. Everything came together regardless—ineffably, one might say—and they had ended up saving the world anyway. Rather, Pepper saved it, while Aziraphale encouraged her and Crowley mostly looked on. 

Tonight, when Crowley finally allows himself to pick up the phone and call as promised, Aziraphale doesn't answer. _That's fine_ , Crowley tells himself. Aziraphale doesn't sleep, but he does sometimes pass out, from drink or whatever else he consumes when Crowley isn't around. He'll send a text tomorrow, no doubt, complaining of a brutal hangover and begging Crowley to bring him a coffee. Crowley will. But it will be lukewarm and just a bit burnt. A little angelic retribution. 

_What if he's not fine?_ Crowley's mind counters. It's good at that. What if Dagon or Michael or both have figured out their deception, which wasn't all that sophisticated really, and Aziraphale is being dragged back to hell at this very moment? What if the two of them never see each other again? 

Crowley's in the Fiesta before he can think about it, driving as safely and responsibly he can while still getting to Soho before the turn of the next century. 

The shop is still standing, of course. _I'm being ridiculous_ , Crowley tells himself. _Aziraphale will laugh at me._ Laugh at him, and tell him he's being over-protective, smothering, “really too much, darling.” Crowley will slink back to his flat, embarrassed. In the morning, Aziraphale will text him to come over for breakfast, which will mean Crowley sipping a cup of tea while Aziraphale eats Sugar Puffs straight from the box. _I can live with that_ , Crowley thinks. He just needs to see Aziraphale now, to make sure. Then he'll go home happy. 

“Aziraphale?” Crowley calls, as he unlocks the door and steps inside. It's dark, the only light coming from the back room where he and Aziraphale occasionally watch “Love Island”, one of Aziraphale's most prized creations. “It's me,” he adds. “Crowley.” No response. Crowley moves further into the shop, passing beneath the gaze of a Grecian urn displaying some Olympic-level sexual athletics and a Victorian-era sketch of two women who seem to be very close friends indeed. He rounds the corner next to a collection of VHS cassettes with Japanese titles and sees it: grey smoke, billowing from behind the half-open door to the back room. 

It can't be happening. Not again. Crowley's heart, which has a habit of lying dormant until the most inopportune times, leaps into action, beating hard enough, it feels, to crack his ribs. “Aziraphale!” Crowley waves a hand and pulls the door off its hinges. It crashes into a display behind him. 

Aziraphale is there, sitting on the sofa. He stands up abruptly. “Crowley!” More smoke pours, dragon-like, out of his nose and mouth. For the first time in their long acquaintance, he looks like a demon, like a true hell-sent creature of evil. Crowley stares for a moment. Then he notices the glass contraption on the table in front of him. 

Crowley has never been an Avenging Angel. If anything, he'd call himself an Average Angel. He does his best. Apart from a couple of little, minor things, like stopping the Apocalypse and bathing in holy water in Hell to save Aziraphale, he follows the rules. He suffers temptations, most often in the form of really practical IKEA dining room sets and Aziraphale in an invention of his he calls “workout wear”, but he withstands them quietly. He has never lost control, never acted out in anger or frustration. Until now. 

Without pausing to consider it, he grabs Aziraphale by the front of his T-shirt and pushes him into the wall. 

“Crowley?” 

“Shut up.” 

Aziraphale looks like he's been slapped in the face. It is unforgivably rude. Crowley doesn't quite care about that the moment. “Do you know what it was like for me, to come here and see the place burning down? To think I lost you?” He doesn't give Aziraphale chance to answer. It's not really a question. “And you're too busy with your marijuana to, to, to...” Crowley takes a deep breath. “To answer your _fucking_ phone?” 

Aziraphale knew the wiring in his shop was ancient. He ignored it because, “It's fine, dear, I can just miracle my bread into toast if I need to.” Then, in the general chaos leading up to Doomsday, a power surge hit the area electrical grid. An old building with bad wiring, full of magazines and joss sticks didn't stand a chance. 

Aziraphale wasn't home at the time. Crowley, of course, didn't know that. He stayed far too long in the burning building, searching desperately until the roof fell in and discorporated him, and he had to undertake some very unorthodox measures in order to get back to Earth in a hurry. He still feels vaguely itchy from his time in Shadwell's body. 

“I'm sorry, darling. I'm so sorry.” Aziraphale stares at him. His makeup is smudged and there are tears in his eyes. Just like that, he looks like himself again: like the opposite of evil, like the most undemonic demon in existence.

Crowley should apologize. Offer a friendly hug, maybe. Pass him the neatly folded handkerchief Crowley has been carrying about, unused, since 1975. Instead, Crowley kisses him. 

At least, he attempts to. It's not something Crowley has experience with, not in this way. Not with this swell of feeling that courses through his body, without any input from his consciousness, as he thrusts his tongue artlessly into Aziraphale's mouth. His hands move from Aziraphale's shoulders to the sides of his face to grip him like he really is in danger of disappearing. Aziraphale grabs him in turn, his hands creasing Crowley's impeccable shirt front. Then he groans, which is both the worst and the best thing he could have done. 

The sound goes directly Crowley's cock, and this time, there's no hope of quashing it. It springs up, stabbing Aziraphale with an enthusiasm that would have been comical if Crowley didn't feel so very far out of his depth. 

“Darling.” Aziraphale pulls back, but not far. His face is a blur of colour in front of Crowley's useless, streaked eyeglasses. Crowley pulls them off and drops them onto the table next to Aziraphale's bong. “What do you want?” 

“You,” is the obvious answer. 

Aziraphale plants kisses along Crowley's jaw and across his face. The frenzied irregularity reassures Crowley, a little. He feels like he's spinning wildly, erratically, out of control, but at least he's not alone. “Sex?” 

“Yes. That sounds good.” Anything sounds good, if it means Crowley can keep hold of Aziraphale, physically hang onto him and make sure he can't go anywhere. Can't leave him again. 

“Fuck,” Aziraphale replies. It's an interjection rather than a confirmation, Crowley assumes. Aziraphale returns to his mouth, exploring eagerly. So eagerly that when he backs towards the stairs, bringing Crowley with him, Aziraphale's heels collide with the edge of the bottom step.

“Are you...”

“Fine,” Aziraphale rights himself. “Perfect. This is perfect. You're perfect.” 

“No,” Crowley says. He's anything but. “But I do want you very much.” Brilliant Aziraphale, who helped to save the world, who has been his friend for millennia, who is so incredible and beautiful and amazing, so smart and so sexy that Crowley hasn't forgotten a single kiss they had at an RAF base eighty years ago. 

“Oh, darling.” Aziraphale kisses Crowley once more then grabs Crowley by the hand and pulls him up the stairs. 

Crowley can't remember ever being upstairs at Aziraphale's before. It doesn't seem like the sort of thing he would forget. The space is cluttered, as one would expect, bursting with magazines and crisp packets and makeup and nail polish. There's a chest of drawers shoved in a corner, broken and spilling its contents of cropped T-shirts, patterned boxer shorts, silk panties, frilly nighties and colourful briefs. The mental image of Aziraphale wearing any or all of those sends a ripple through Crowley, and things are very nearly over before they've started. _Next time_ , Crowley thinks. _When I'm more experienced._

Speaking of which. “You know I've never done this before,” Crowley reminds him, as Aziraphale pushes him onto a narrow bed, unmade and covered with crumbs and dust. _Clearly not IKEA_ , Crowley sniffs, as the frame shifts ominously beneath their weight. 

“Neither have I.” Aziraphale pulls off his own shirt and tosses it across the room. 

“What?” That can't be. He's a demon. More pertinently, he's the owner of a pornography shop in Soho. 

“I'm a connoisseur, not a contributor.” 

“Why not?” Crowley is plain, boring, sexually unappealing to humans. That's the way he likes it. Aziraphale is different. For all he's discounted by the majority of people around him, there has always been a percentage, in all eras and all of all genders, who are powerfully attracted to him. Crowley has seen it in their eyes, in the way they contrive to touch him unnecessarily, sometimes in their outright propositions. “It's not like you aren't interested. You wanted to do it with me back in 1941.” Hadn't she? Has Crowley been misremembering Aziraphale's enthusiasm all these years?

“I'll let you think about that one.” Aziraphale slides his hands up Crowley's arms to his shoulders, then moves over to start unfastening his buttons. He pauses after each to kiss the exposed skin. By the time he's undone three buttons, Crowley can't think about anything. He also can't wait any longer. With a snap of his fingers, both he and Aziraphale are naked. 

Aziraphale looks down and smirks. “Naughty, love.” 

That's when it hits Crowley. _Love._

As an angel, he's supposed to radiate it like the sun. Everyone in his presence is supposed to be overcome by his loving aura, to flourish in it the way his plants do. He tries. He offers comfort to humans wherever he can, but it's Aziraphale, not him, who broadcasts it all the time, all over the place. Aziraphale's the one who gets orgasmic over a hamburger, the one who has filled his home with representations of physical love in all its forms, the one who can't focus on any one thing for long because he loves everything so much. He's the one who called off a temptation to save the feelings of a soon-to-be grieving widow. He's the one who Fell because he gave away his sword to humans in need. He's the one who wanted to stop the Apocalypse out of love for the Earth and everything on it. 

Crowley went along with it because he loves Aziraphale. He should say that, he thinks. Instead, the words,“You're wonderful,” come out of Crowley's mouth. They don't come close to what he means, so he adds, “Angel.” 

If Aziraphale doesn't understand him, it's a hopelessly cruel thing to say, but Aziraphale understands. He always has. He laughs and sobs at the same time. “You bastard.” He wipes his tears away on the back of his hand. “I can't suck your cock if I'm crying. Unless you're into that, I guess. It's not my usual thing, but I've seen some videos...”

“Don't cry!” Crowley has never said those words with more conviction. Conviction which falters when he tries to continue. “Just...” 

“Love you back?” Aziraphale suggests. “I do. And I quite like the sound of those two words together, by the way, in case there are any questions you'd like to think about asking me.” 

Crowley laughs out loud, the way only Aziraphale can make him. Nevertheless, the image appears in his mind. The two of them, pledging themselves to one another in some unconsecrated field, Aziraphale in a suit or a wedding dress or cut-off jeans or whatever he wants to wear. Then Aziraphale bites the inside of his thigh, and all thoughts are swept away by a wave of desire.

Crowley has always thought of his corporation as a sturdy entity, with plenty of physical stamina. In the old days, before cars, before trains, even before horses, he was always hiking all over Creation. In more modern times, he's done any number of lengthy marches, walk-a-thons, and Fun Runs for good, Heavenly causes. He needs to reevaluate this self-image, however, when Aziraphale licks his cock twice, root to tip, swallows it down his throat, and Crowley promptly comes in his mouth. 

“Oh.” Crowley blinks, stunned, as Aziraphale coughs. “I'm dreadfully sorry.” 

Aziraphale slides back up the bed, pressing his mouth to Crowley's. There's a strange, salty taste on his tongue that Crowley belatedly realizes is him. It's enough to get Crowley's cock stirring again, selfishly.

“What do you want me to do for you?” Crowley asks. Aziraphale's cock looks painfully hard, flushed and resting between their stomachs. For such an avid fan of porn, Aziraphale was remarkably restrained when he made this effort. Crowley doesn't have much to compare it with, but it doesn't seem too long, or too wide, or too showy. It's gorgeous. “I'll do whatever you ask.” Whatever he wants can't be wrong. None of this can be wrong, because Aziraphale is so incredibly right. 

Crowley is prepared for anything, but Aziraphale just rolls onto his side, his back to Crowley. The sword-shaped mark on his back glows brightly, as beautiful as ever. Crowley kisses Aziraphale's shoulder and then the mark itself. Aziraphale hums and slides in closer, Crowley's renewed erection pressing eagerly against his thighs. _I could come again like this_ , Crowley thinks, fighting the urge to rub himself against Aziraphale until he does. Right now, it's about what Aziraphale wants. And what he wants, it seems, is to hold Crowley's hand against his own stomach, their fingers interlaced, and make no move to take it further. “Angel?” Now that he's hit on it, there's nothing else Crowley wants to call him. Nothing else that fits. 

“I fell in love with you before Farnham Woods,” Aziraphale says.

Crowley pushes his eager need to one side and casts his mind back.“When we were at that dreadful nightclub in Berlin in 1930?” 

“It wasn't dreadful!” 

“It was.” The place had been an absolute den of vice. And the floors were so sticky, Crowley's shoes never did recover. 

“I met some very nice people there. Anyway, it was before that.”

“That picnic in Cambridgeshire in 1914?” Now _that_ had been a lovely day. Sunny and warm. They'd stretched out on the riverbank with a picnic basket full of ripe strawberries and a bottle of champagne so good even Crowley still remembers it. Aziraphale wore a charming striped jacket and a boater hat and had been so exuberantly joyful it made Crowley impossibly happy just to be near him. 

“Further back.”

Crowley thinks. “St. Petersburg in 1902? I seem to remember you complaining a great deal about your corset. Then your boyfriend challenged me to duel.” 

“I'd forgotten about Yevgeni!” Crowley immediately regrets bringing him up. Crowley had miracled him into forgetting about his wounded pride, and saved his soul at the same time by erasing the man's passionate feelings for Aziraphale. It was the angelic thing to do. “But no. And we could be at this all night, dear, so I'll just tell you. It was the koalas.” 

“The what?” 

“They slept too long, remember? They were going to miss the Ark. You used a miracle to get them on board in time.” Crowley remembers. One of the unicorns had already fled, and he couldn't bear to think of another species being lost to the Flood. He justified it to himself by thinking it wasn't their fault, that all this was meant to punish the humans, not them. He told Noah to hide them in Australia, as if God wouldn't be able to see them there.

“I didn't think you'd noticed.” He hoped Aziraphale hadn't noticed. It didn't seem the thing to announce one's weaknesses to the enemy moments after meeting them, but the newly arrived Aziraphale seemed so disoriented, Crowley assumed he hadn't seen. He certainly never mentioned it.

“Of course I noticed,” Aziraphale replies. “It was the first time I saw someone who cared. Not in the way the other angels do, the superficial way. The real way. Enough to do something about it. And I know that wasn't exactly a good career move in my case, but I didn't regret it. Not when I realized I got to be with you.” 

“That's....all that time? Really?” Through Vicorian England and medieval Florence and feudal Japan? In Rupert's Land and on Rapa Nui and with the Xianbei? Every person they'd ever been, in every place they'd seen together? “That's thousands of years.” 

“Yes.” Aziraphale's voice is a little strangled. “I know.” 

“You could have...” Crowley's not sure how to finish that thought. Could have what? Told him? Crowley wouldn't have done anything productive with the information. Knowing him, he might very well have done something stupid. “I'm sorry I'm such an idiot.” 

“You're not an idiot!” Aziraphale raises Crowley's hand to his lips. “You're sweet, and you're darling, and you indulge me so much. And I adore you.” He squirms a little. Crowley's cock decides enough is enough. It jerks, hoping, apparently, one of them will take the hint. 

Aziraphale does. “Oh, I'm sorry, dear. Listen to me talking when there's so much else we could be doing.” He flips over, manoeuvring so he's atop Crowley. For someone who's never done it before, he's remarkably adept. Crowley supposes his decades-long obsession has been educational, if nothing else. Aziraphale shifts up, then down. Crowley groans in pure pleasure as his cock slides easily into Aziraphale's searing, already-slick heat. He bends down to kiss Crowley, whose final thought, before he rapidly comes a second time, is: _This is heaven._ It's blasphemous. He can't bring himself to regret it. Not when he reaches up to fumble inexpertly with Aziraphale's cock, and Aziraphale comes in turn, gasping “Darling!” like it's a curse, a benediction and an endearment all in one.


	3. Epilogue

“I let you be inside me.” 

“Please never say that again, Mr. Shadwell.” 

Shadwell narrows his eyes at Crowley. “I reckon that makes us like family, don't you?” 

Not really. Crowley adjusts his tie, which is approximately half the width of what he would usually wear. He's dressed in black for the first time in his existence, because Aziraphale convinced him he couldn't get married in a beige suit. “You have to contrast with me, darling,” he insisted, and Aziraphale was adamant he's wearing a white tuxedo and a veil. 

“So,” Shadwell goes on, squinting in the sun. It's a beautiful day for a wedding. Crowley made sure of that. “If you're really set on marrying the southern pansy--” This is Shadwell's abiding name for Aziraphale. “Let's face it,” was Aziraphale's response. “I've been called a lot worse.” “Which it seems like you are, then I ought to be your best man.” 

“That's...that's, ah, quite an idea, Mr. Shadwell, but I'm not sure...”

“Who else you got to do it, laddie?” Shadwell casts a wide gesture across the nearly-empty field. Mrs. Shadwell, formerly Witchfinder Sergeant Tracy, is dabbing at Aziraphale's eye makeup with the corner of a tissue. The officiant, proud descendant of Agnes Nutter herself, is preparing his materials to officiate what is surely the universe's first ethereal-occult wedding. His partner, Ada Pulsifer, appears to be closely examining a dandelion. A puff of wind comes up and blows the seeds directly into her face. She brushes them from her eyes and looks about to see if anyone saw. Crowley pretends he didn't. 

“I suppose you're right.” 

“Course I am. And don't worry,” Shadwell adds, in the tone of someone who thinks, erroneously, that he is being reassuring, “I've got a speech prepared for afterwards and all.” 

Maledictus Device intones a few incantations, a few recitations, and what Crowley is fairly certain are a few lyrics from the greatest hits of One Direction. It's utterly meaningless, but looking at Aziraphale, it doesn't feel that way. When Maledictus instructs them to do so, Crowley and Aziraphale kiss in the way they rehearsed for this moment: fervent without being unseemly, adoring without being discomfiting for others. It took a lot of practice to get it right. A _lot_. Pepper and her friends throw celebratory handfuls of wildflower seeds, non-invasive species only, and Crowley feels sorry for every other angel who hasn't experienced this depth of happiness. Which is all of them. 

“Darling.” Aziraphale smiles, tears shining in his eyes. He's the most beautiful he's ever looked, and that's saying something. It's enough to distract Crowley from the sticky stiffness of his own hair, saturated with what is apparently called “product” and coaxed into the first new hairstyle he's had since 1883. He's not sold on it yet, but from the way Aziraphale is looking at him—like he's a pile of ketchupy chips, a pint of bitter and a bowl of cannabis all rolled into one—he may have to consider keeping it. “Do you...” Aziraphale hesitates, fidgeting with the hem of his veil before putting it back in place.

“What is it, angel?”

“Do you think...She has an opinion about this?” He doesn't need to clarify who he's talking about. 

“I don't know.” Crowley received a strange delivery several weeks ago: a pound-shop greeting card with an image of a dove holding a ribbon and two wedding rings on the front. Inside was a message, written in glowing gold lettering so beautiful it would instantly blind any human who looked upon it: _We are aware you are doing this._ Crowley hasn't yet decided if it's meant to be congratulatory, threatening, or merely an impassive acknowledgement. 

Aziraphale hasn't heard anything from down below. There was a very large hornet flying about the shop for a couple of days, which Aziraphale suspected might be a message for him, but it flew out without further action or comment when he left the window open for a while. 

“I suppose...” Crowley is interrupted by a sudden, deep, baying _woof_. 

“Dog!” Pepper calls. Her enormous hellhound lumbers, like a small horse, across the field towards where Crowley parked his car. 

“What is that?” Aziraphale shades his eyes. A grey entity, much smaller than Dog, crawls out into view beside the car. Crowley doesn't even have time to worry about his paintwork before Aziraphale says, “Is that...a koala?” 

It seems so. Pepper reaches Dog and grabs her collar. The koala clambers onto the bumper, then the boot, then the roof of the Fiesta. Crowley could swear it looks directly at him as it raises one long-clawed hand and deftly snaps off his antenna. 

“Darling,” Aziraphale says, hesitantly. “I think She might want you to get a cooler car.” 

“Perhaps.” And maybe there's another message there, as well. Two harried-looking zookeepers burst from the bushes, the children run over to get a closer look, and Crowley sweeps Aziraphale into a decidedly unseemly kiss, passionate and emotional and everything he thought he wasn't, until Aziraphale taught him differently. Aziraphale doesn't hesitate to return it in kind, pulling Crowley close, pressing their corporations together so tightly Crowley is amazed they don't actually merge essences. _Another time_ , Crowley thinks, dazedly. They have the rest of eternity. There will be plenty of chances to try it all.

“That's enough of that, then.” Shadwell coughs. “I've got a speech to give, you know.” 

“Of course, Mr. Shadwell.” Aziraphale pulls away, but he doesn't go far. He keeps his hand in Crowley's as they make their way across the field. 

The zookeepers have gathered up the koala into a plastic carrying crate with a grille on the front. The animal winks at Crowley as he passes by. 

“Agnes predicted that,” Maledictus says, falling into step beside them. Crowley isn't even going to look at his car, he decides. They'll walk to the pub, and come back for it later. “The koala. In her second book. I didn't want to spoil the surprise. Actually,” he admits, “I was expecting a possum.”

“Ah.”

“There was something else, too.” 

“Another prediction?” 

“Not exactly.” He frowns. “More of a...vision, I guess.” Crowley's not sure of the difference. Maledictus goes on. “Of another world. Like ours, but different. I was a woman. Ada was a man. One of Pepper's friends was the Antichrist. Dog was little.” 

“That sounds so interesting,” Aziraphale says, in the voice he uses when he's lying. 

“Aziraphale,” Maledictus goes on, “you were an angel. And Crowley was a demon.” 

Crowley stops. He feels cold, suddenly, although the sun is still out and shining brightly. It's not like he's never thought about the possibility. The Ark, the Arrangement, preventing the Apocalypse and making love with—and marrying—Aziraphale. He could have Fallen for any one of those things. He hasn't. Not yet, anyway. But what if...

Crowley feels Aziraphale's hand squeeze his. “Well, we know that's nonsense, don't we, darling? I'd be a terrible angel. All I do is eat and get drunk. Speaking of which...” He walks on, pulling Crowley with him.

“Aziraphale...” Crowley says, when they're out of Maledictus' earshot. 

“I want,” Aziraphale replies, “you to get me a drink every time Shadwell calls me the 'southern pansy' in this speech of his. Two if he mentions the time he saw me wearing the leather shorts with the stiletto boots.”

Crowley hesitates, but Aziraphale is right. It's silly. He smiles back. “Are you sure that's a good idea? You might discorporate of alcohol poisoning.” 

“That's true. I swear, it must have awakened something in him, darling, because when you were in his body, he wouldn't stop staring at my arse. Unless that was you, of course, dear, in which case, you're more than welcome look as much as you like...” _It doesn't matter what a long dead witch might have seen,_ Crowley thinks. _This is who I am._ And this, right here, with this demon, is the happiest, and the luckiest, he could ever be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again for all the support! I really appreciate your AU indulgence!


End file.
